20 Sure-fire Ways to Be a Great Entrepreneur

Successful entrepreneurs have great characteristics they live by. Even if you don’t have all of these characteristics, don’t fret. Most can be learned with practice and by developing a winning attitude.

Becoming a successful entrepreneur requires a lot of discipline and adoption of intangible values.

These are 20 ways you will find worthwhile.

1. Define Your Passion

What you get out of your business in the form of personal satisfaction, financial gain, stability and enjoyment will be the sum of what you put into your business. Hence you cannot be at your best if you don’t like what you are doing.

2. Take what you do seriously

It is very imperative for you take whatever you do very seriously if you want to carve a niche for yourself as a wonderful entrepreneur. Put a hundred percent effort into what you do.

3. Plan everything

Planning every aspect of your business is not only a must, but also builds habits that every home entrepreneur should develop, implement, and maintain. The act of business planning is so important because it requires you to analyze each business situation, research and make conclusions based mainly on the facts as revealed through the research.

4. Be Prudent

The lifeblood of any business enterprise is cash flow. You need it to buy inventory, pay for services, promote and market your business, repair and replace tools and equipment, and pay yourself so that you can continue to work. Therefore, you must become a wise money manager to ensure that the cash works for its purpose.

5. Be Ready For Marketing

As an entrepreneur you must always remember that marketing, advertising, or promotional activities are the ways to make your brand known. You must be willing to put all these in place.

6. Put Your Customers First

Your business is not about the products or services that you sell. It is also not about the prices that you charge for your goods and services. Your business is all about your customers. After all, your customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust.

7. Become a Promoter

Self-promotion is one of the most beneficial, yet most underutilized, marketing tools that the majority of home business owners have at their immediate disposal.

8. Project a positive business image

You must go out of your way and make a conscious effort to always project the most professional business image possible. You also must rely on imagination, creativity and attention to the smallest detail when creating and maintaining a professional image for your business.

9. Know your customers

One of the biggest features and often the most significant competitive edge you will have is to offer personalized attention. Get to know your customers, provide personal attention and win over repeat business by doing so.

10. Level the playing field with technology.

Make sure you’re keeping up with the high-tech world as it suits your needs. The best technology is that which helps you, not that which impresses your neighbours. In this new age, running your business without technology is like living in the Stone Age.

11. Build a top-notch business team

No one person can build a successful business alone. It’s a task that requires a team that is as committed as you are to the business and its success. Don’t work with just any one. Only select and work with those that share the same vision as you.

12. Become known as an expert

In effect, becoming known as an expert is another style of prospecting for new clients only that this time around, it is in reverse. Instead of finding new and qualified people to sell to, these people seek you out for your expertise.

13. Create a competitive advantage

Your business must have a clearly defined unique selling proposition. Ask yourself these questions; will it be better service, a longer warranty, better selection, longer business hours, more flexible payment options, lowest price, personalized service, better customer service, better return and exchange policies or a combination of several of these?

14. Invest in yourself

Buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications. These resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills.

15. Be accessible

You must make it as easy as you can for people to do business with you, regardless of the home business you operate.

You must remain cognizant of the fact that few people will work hard, go out of their way, or be inconvenienced just for the privilege of giving you their hard-earned money.

16. Build a rock-solid reputation

A good reputation is unquestionably one of your most tangible and marketable assets. You can’t simply buy a good reputation; it’s something that you earn by honouring your promises.

17. Sell benefits

Selling the benefits associated with owning and using the products and services you carry is what sales professionals worldwide focus on to create buying excitement. They also use this strategy to sell, sell more, and sell more frequently to their customers.

18. Get involved

Always go out of your way to get involved in the community that supports your business. You can do this in many ways, such as helping local charities, becoming involved in organizing community events, and getting involved in local politics.

19. Grab attention

Small business owners cannot waste time, money and energy on promotional activities aimed at building awareness solely through long-term and repeated exposure.

20. Master the art of negotiations

The ability to negotiate effectively is unquestionably a skill that you must make every effort to master. Always remember that mastering the art of negotiation means that your skills are so finely tuned that you can always orchestrate a win-win situation.

These winning qualities are all you need to become a success in what you do. Stick with these and before long you will be a success story. However, patience and persistence are also very important if being a great entrepreneur is your goal. So, ensure you adopt these qualities.

Enjoyed the post? Kindly use the sharing buttons below to share the post on your favorite social networks.

Published by Valentine Belonwu

My name is Valentine, founder of this site, an entrepreneur working as a moderator at Bizsugar a small business community news site.
Connect with me on Google+ at Valetine Belonwu

4 Comments

These are some great tips you have here. The first 4 really resonated with me. Defining your passion and dreams and putting them on paper is HUGE. If you look at these things on a daily basis, I have heard from many gurus that they will start to play out for you so long as you are willing to work hard. But as you said, you need to like what you are doing. If not, you’ll never last through the tough times.

Being a smart business owner and taking things seriously are also very important. If you don’t have a plan, how can you implement the right things and accomplish your goals? I see many trying to do this. With the right business mindset, you can make all your dreams come true and I know these tips will help people get there!

Hi Jess,
I know being a successful entrepreneur requires hardwork, determination and of course having the right mindset in everything you do.
I fully agree with everything you said here. Thanks so much for leaving a valuable comment here. Hope to see more of you here :).